Silencing Sam

by Julie Kramer

  “Sam’s mother is praying for a DNA match,” he said. “She’d rather have a grandchild than the money.”

  “Can’t be much money,” I said. After all, Sam worked for a newspaper—a dying industry. I noted some symmetry.

  Then Jeremy informed me that Sam actually had a considerable estate from all his speechwriting.

  “What speeches?” Occasionally I spoke before civic groups or journalism classes, and all that usually netted me was a thank-you and perhaps a luncheon buffet. The long-term hope was that the audience would become Channel 3 viewers.

  “Sam wrote speeches for many corporate executives. General Mills. Best Buy. Medtronic. 3M. His rate was ten grand.”

  The number was such a surprise, I almost rear-ended the vehicle driven by Sam’s dad. I slammed on my brakes, skidded to safety, then looked to see if Jeremy was joking. He wasn’t.

  “That rate seems on the high end to me,” I said.

  “I’ve seen the checks. Apparently he was worth it.”

  I asked who, for example, Sam had written for recently and was impressed when Jeremy named a top CEO.

  “He also wrote speeches for some politicians, but not very often.”

  I was about to point out that such moonlighting might have posed a serious conflict of interest for Sam’s “Piercing Eyes” column when his parents suddenly slowed down for an exit off the freeway. I hung back as they turned onto a frontage road. When they pulled into a hotel parking lot, I pulled into a gas station across the street and watched them carry luggage inside.

  Jeremy used that opportunity to open the car door and tell me he was catching a cab.

  CHAPTER 34

  For the next ten minutes, I tried to come up with a believable way to approach Sam’s parents for an interview. Generally, I pride myself on being creative in the field, but my earlier graveyard rendezvous with Sam’s mother made another encounter impossible.

  I considered cruising by uptown florists to look for Daisy but decided she had probably closed the shop by now and would likely be in a more approachable mood tomorrow.

  Instead, I headed back downtown to the station. Traffic was now flowing better in that direction. The newscast was ending as I walked in the back security door. Nobody asked me where I’d been. So I ducked into my office before anyone thought about it.

  I called another of the pistol-packing felons on my list. “Hello, I’m conducting a news survey about Minnesota’s conceal-and-carry permit system and whether any improvements might be made—”

  He hung up on me as abruptly as if I was hawking magazines or asking for used clothing donations.

  Just for the heck of it, I called the CEO whose speech Jeremy said Sam had written. I was connected to the company communications director and told her I’d like to talk to her boss about Sam Pierce’s speechwriting abilities.

  I didn’t have much hope of getting a call back. So when it happened almost immediately, I was flustered, especially by his angry tone.

  “What kind of a shakedown is this?” the head of one of Minnesota’s Fortune 500 companies screamed in my ear. “First him, now you.”

  “Excuse me?” I said, trying to understand what he was talking about.

  “Don’t play dumb with me. Just know if I hear from you again, I will call the police.” Then he hung up.

  A half hour later, I got a call from one of the name partners of Minneapolis’s largest law firm. Because he handled corporate, not criminal, law, we didn’t know each other, but he had something he wanted to discuss.

  I smelled a story. I needed a story. I offered to come over right away.

  When I walked in, even though it was after business hours, I saw legal associates hunched over their desks, desperately working to make partner. The economic downturn was causing many companies to balk at the concept of straight billable hours from their attorneys, and the only legal business on the upswing was bankruptcy filings.

  The first thing Bryan Streit told me was that he was representing Mr. CEO about “our matter.”

  “My client is sorry he lost his temper and asked me to assure you he doesn’t want to involve the police.”

  Sometimes when I don’t know what a source is talking about, I bluff that I do, hoping to get clarification. This wasn’t one of those times. I was blunt. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Let’s stop playing coy. Mr. Pierce may have preferred referring to it as a ‘speech,’ but hush money is hush money. What’s your price for keeping this quiet?”

  Suddenly I suspected Sam was not just a catty gossip but also a calculating extortionist. And I decided to try my bluff tactic.

  “So Sam wrote a ‘speech’ about your client’s personal life and sold it to him?”

  “Don’t play dumb,” he said. “All that talk about how much my client thought the ‘speech’ was worth? And if my client didn’t want the ‘speech,’ maybe it would make a good newspaper column. Pierce called it a speech to make it sound like a business transaction, but it was straight-up blackmail.”

  It sure was.

  “We don’t know exactly how you came to have possession of this confidential information.” The lawyer seemed to be hinting I must have stolen some file after killing Sam. “But my client continues to want to keep the issue about his life private.”

  “This is a misunderstanding.” I explained about running across his client’s name while doing research about Sam Pierce and being curious about the payment. “I have no idea what secret your client is hiding, and frankly, I don’t want to know.”

  That last bit wasn’t actually true. But if his client’s skeleton was newsworthy, and if I ever unearthed it, buying my silence wasn’t an option. My hunch was it probably had something to do with sex. Maybe Sam’s target was a closeted gay.

  Mr. CEO’s attorney seemed unsure whether or not to believe my professed ignorance. He was skeptical when I refused to accept a check for “my discretion.”

  As I walked back to the station, I wondered how Sam decided which people to sell “speeches” and which to simply surprise with an item in the newspaper. I’d been featured numerous times in “Piercing Eyes,” and he’d never offered me the speech deal. Of course, I’d have gone straight to his boss before paying him ten grand.

  Sam was taking a risk each time he played his game. If he approached the wrong mark, he could have wound up fired.

  Or dead.

  CHAPTER 35

  The next morning, while eating burnt toast and drinking juice, I heard a heavy knock and loud, unwelcome words: “Police officer. Search warrant.”

  When I opened the door, Minneapolis police frisked me through my frizzy bathrobe, then waved a warrant for my home and car. They didn’t include my desk at Channel 3, most likely to avoid a First Amendment battle.

  This meant legal work for Benny, not Miles.

  My criminal attorney rushed over and reviewed the probable-cause affidavit attached to the warrant. He noted the cops had already subpoenaed my phone records and discovered several calls to both my house line and cell phone that went unanswered the night of Sam Pierce’s murder—despite my telling police that I’d been home during that entire evening.

  “See, Riley, this is why I didn’t want you to let them interview you,” Benny said. “Not only do you not have an alibi for the night of Sam Pierce’s murder, your whereabouts seem inconsistent with your official statement.”

  “I was too upset to talk to anyone that night. I crawled into bed and ignored the phone.”

  “Well, the cops think the calls went unanswered because you were busy killing Sam.”

  In the affidavit, the court bailiff also verified tension and sharp words between the gossip columnist and me hours before the homicide. Of course, the police made much of my guilty plea for assault.

  “Luckily, none of this is enough to actually charge you with murder,” Benny said. “Please assure me they won’t find any evidence while searching your house or car.”

  “Abs
olutely not. It’s going to be a waste of their time. I’m innocent. So I have nothing to fear.”

  We both sat on the porch—him in a lawyer suit because he was a lawyer, me still in my bathrobe because the cops wouldn’t let me upstairs to change into something less comfortable. Some neighbors glanced over at the squad cars, one marked, one unmarked, as they left for their jobs. An elderly couple undertook yard work, probably as an excuse to keep a curious watch on the happenings outside.

  Meanwhile, the cops examined my car and house. The main item they were looking for was a Glock handgun. They came up empty but took other items like my hairbrush, toothbrush, and some clothing.

  “They’re hoping to link your DNA to the crime scene,” Benny said.

  I shook my head. “Not going to happen, but at least this way they can eliminate me.”

  “I like confidence in a client, but promise me you won’t do any media interviews. Nada. All that does is make my job harder.”

  I understood Benny’s point, but there’s a public relations strategy that journalists call getting out in front of bad news. That means announcing your own trouble before the media finds out. Sort of like late-night host David Letterman gaining sympathy for sexual high jinks by sharing his extortion tale in front of a live studio audience.

  “What if I just give a statement?” I asked Benny. “No questions.”

  “Any statements to be made, I’ll make them.”

  Because I wanted to keep top defense attorney Benny Walsh as my lawyer, I raised my palm in a solemn pledge.

  Until then, I’d been observing the police proceedings with more professional interest than personal worry. Calling Noreen, I told her why I’d be late, and she told me the station didn’t need any more of this kind of publicity. Then she quoted more clauses from my personal services contract about “public morals” and actions that “reflect unfavorably on her employer.”

  I just sat there and took it because I didn’t have a choice and figured it wouldn’t last for long.

  “Are our competitors likely to find out?” Noreen asked.

  Typically the media doesn’t learn about search warrants being executed until after the fact, when the paperwork is filed with the court. So any beat reporter who made daily rounds would eventually find the story. Of course, with the recent newsroom cutbacks, those checks often get nixed in favor of more easily obtained fresh content.

  “Chances are, someone inside the cop shop will leak it,” I said. “Maybe even the chief.”

  “In that case,” she said, “we better be first. I’ll put Clay on it.”

  I had no objection to Channel 3 going on the record with the story. Best that the station didn’t appear to be hiding negative news. But even though Clay and I were starting to get along, he was the last reporter I wanted covering me. He’d likely try to turn it into the lead story. I know I would, if the newsmaker wasn’t me.

  “Because the search isn’t going to yield anything useful for prosecution, maybe it’s best, Noreen, to just make the story an anchor reader rather than assign a reporter.”

  “No, Riley, Clay’s been covering the gossip homicide from the start. He’s got the big-picture perspective.”

  He’s also got a big mouth, but I held back sharing that view with Noreen because the homicide investigator in charge came over. I told my boss I had to run but would be in the office shortly. The cop handed me a copy of the paperwork outlining what their team had confiscated.

  “Hey, why’d you take my pink jacket?” I asked. It wasn’t like it had bloodstains or anything. And I’d started to appreciate the color for standups. “When am I going to get it back?”

  He didn’t answer, simply pointed to the blank line that needed my signature and date.

  Less than an hour later, I arrived at Channel 3 and, under orders from Noreen, made Clay a copy of the pages, which he eagerly grabbed from my hands.

  He shook his head as he scanned the search warrant. “Well, little lady, seems to me you have more of a talent for making news than covering it.”

  “And you have no talent at all,” I responded. “Seems to me if you’re such a well-connected crime reporter, you’d have aired an exclusive on this search warrant already without my help.”

  “Maybe I promised my sources not to reveal anything until this business at your house was finished up,” Clay said. “They might have worried you’d destroy incriminating evidence if you got a heads-up.”

  Actually, that was exactly the kind of thing the chief might have made Clay agree to before telling him about the warrant.

  “But there isn’t any evidence,” I said.

  “That’s what half the bums in prison say.”

  “Clay, you’re just afraid I’ll find Sam’s killer before you do.”

  “Honey, you couldn’t find your head with both hands.”

  “I’m getting sick of your Texanisms.”

  “How about that Minnesota accent of yours, you betcha?”

  “Never mock a TV market you’re new in,” I advised him. “The audience won’t forget or forgive.”

  I decided a lesson in talking Minnesotan might be just what Clay needed. After all, moving from the Lone Star State to the North Star State couldn’t have been easy. So I started explaining how we drink pop, not soda, and eat a hot dish, not a casserole.

  But he wasn’t the least bit grateful and accused me of trying to change the subject. “Missy, you give aspirin a headache.”

  “Headache? Me? You’re the biggest headache who’s ever worked here.”

  “Does that mean you’re declining an on-camera interview?”

  “You betcha.” I stomped away.

  So much for Minnesota Nice.

  ((CLAY, LIVE))

  THIS HOUSE … WHERE

  CHANNEL 3’S OWN RILEY

  SPARTZ LIVES … IS WHERE

  MINNEAPOLIS HOMICIDE

  INVESTIGATORS SPENT THE

  MORNING SEARCHING FOR

  CLUES IN THE MURDER OF

  GOSSIP COLUMNIST SAM

  PIERCE.

  When I turned on the noon news an hour later, Clay had a wide grin across his face as he broadcast a live shot in front of my home. I didn’t like that he walked across my yard instead of standing in the public street. If he hadn’t been live on the air, I would have called his cell phone and screamed, “Trespasser!”

  ((CLAY, LIVE))

  SPARTZ REFUSED TO

  COMMENT OR GIVE AN ON-

  CAMERA INTERVIEW … AND

  HER ATTORNEY DISMISSED

  THE POLICE ACTION AS

  “POLITICAL

  GRANDSTANDING” …

  SAYING HIS CLIENT WAS

  “MOST DEFINITELY NOT

  GUILTY.”

  Infuriated, I threw a dictionary at the television set, forgetting it wasn’t really hitting Clay. He’d used an old broadcast trick of talking fast and swallowing the “not” in “not guilty” to create the impression for casual viewers that even my own attorney thought I was guilty.

  Even though I should probably have called my parents right then and reassured them that things were not as bad as they sounded, instead I marched to Noreen’s office for a showdown.

  My boss was leafing through budget papers and didn’t even have the volume turned up on her wall of television screens. The noon was Channel 3’s lowest-priority newscast in terms of content, ratings, and advertising. The audience was largely older viewers—demos the sales staff didn’t think spent much money. Much of the advertising comes from the Cremation Society of Minnesota and various hearing aid companies.

  “Did you watch his report?” I asked. “Clay made it look like I was uncooperative when I was the one who gave him the story. Noreen, you need to talk to him.”

  “Was what he said accurate, Riley?”

  “His words may have been accurate, but his tone was obnoxious and the notion he gave viewers was false.”

  “And how many times have you done the same thing?”

  How c
ould she take that attitude? Clay must have brainwashed her.

  “This is me we’re talking about, Noreen. You’re supposed to have my back. The deal was the station was simply going to be first on the record with the search warrant. That’s it. Let the newspaper be the one to gang up on me.”

  My boss sighed and promised she’d look at his report once the newscast was over. Then she bent over a spreadsheet and ignored me.

  When I got back to my desk, the newspaper’s crime reporter had left a phone message asking me to call him back. I passed the number on to Benny. Getting quoted in the paper was one of his favorite parts of being an attorney. He called it free advertising.

  CHAPTER 36

  Within an hour, I had my own breaking news and no time to worry about Clay.

  ((ANCHOR/PIX))

  IF YOU’VE SEEN THIS

  CAR … AUTHORITIES WANT

  TO KNOW.

  Abandoned in a north Minneapolis neighborhood, a green station wagon was towed to a storage yard after thieves made off with the tires and stereo. But the cops didn’t care about the vandals, they cared about the owner: Lucas Harlan, the dead wind bomber.

  One of the lot workers, a news junkie, had recognized the name.

  ((CAR GUY/SOT))

  I RAN THE PLATES AND

  THOUGHT, ISN’T HE THAT

  WIND BOMBER GUY

  WHO BLEW HIMSELF UP?

  A forensics team examined the vehicle and discovered, on the hood, traces of blood and tissue—Lucas Harlan’s blood and tissue. That crucial clue placed the vehicle at the location of the blast and proved the existence—but not the identity—of a co-conspirator.

  ((POLICE, SOT))

  SOMEONE MOVED THAT CAR

  MORE THAN A HUNDRED

  MILES AND WE WANT TO

  FIND HIM.

  The feds also released another photo of the wind bomber. In this one, he had hair.

  Maybe it was his angular cheeks or the way he held his chin. But in a flash of clarity, I recalled Batman’s dark eyes and shaggy mane. I looked back at the video from the Bat Protector interview but Malik had saved no shots of him from the video card, only Serena. And I was uncertain where to look for her just now.